War would be a scourge enough if it were only a tragedy. It is also a distraction.
If a newspaper runs one story about Israel, it is likely to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because war stories shock. Ditto about Iraq. In the Israeli media, where terrorism hits especially close to home, it is no different. Israeli political debate focuses on who will keep Israeli children safe in cafes, which for an Israeli voter inexorably overshadows other topics.
So not until recently did the spotlight hit the economy under Sharon and the conservative Likud party with whom he rose to power. In five years, Sharon's government has unleashed the free market, slashing spending for the poor and education, cutting welfare and supporting layoffs. Last December I was amazed to learn that one in five Israelis lives below the poverty line. Now it is closer to one in six.
Enter Amir Peretz. Here is a man who revived Israel's largest labor union, the Histadrut, with tough strikes, and is now leading Israel's long-lethargic Labor Party on a platform of reinvigorating welfare and raising the minimum wage by 30 percent, to $1,000 a month. Sharon's Israel needed a reminder that the Jewish state was founded in part by young, socialist, idealistic workers and farmers. The appearance of such a reminder in the figure of Peretz as a candidate for Prime Minister is a large part of what pushed forward the founding of Kadima, Sharon's centre-right party last December. Here's hoping that Peretz's politics can beat out those of Sharon-regent Ehud Olmert in Israel's next legislative elections (they are happening today).
Over the past few months, Peretz has had real if sporadic success in shifting the whole political discourse toward the working Israeli. Soon after Peretz's previous victory, Sharon declared a "war on poverty," while traditional Likudniks Shaul Mofaz and Silvan Shalom lashed out at Sharon's finance minister. It seemed for a while that Peretz had reframed the debate in his terms in a lasting way.
Enter a Hamas-led Palestine which, at least in terms of foreign press, dropped Peretz and even the impending elections off the radar.
I was disappointed when Peretz announced that he, like Sharon, supports a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. But Peretz cannot challenge Sharon too vigorously on security. He would rather win. If he appears soft on terrorism, some potential voters will defect to Sharon, hurting Peretz's chances to win and his ability to install his economic reforms. So Peretz's stance, in effect, is, "I'll keep you as safe as Sharon, and I'll keep your job and your wallet safe, too."
This leaves me hoping that Amir Peretz will clone himself and join the Democratic Party. Peretz's platform is exactly what John Kerry's should have been in 2004, and what Hillary shows good signs of being able to pull off in 2008.
In post-Sept. 11 America, the "war on terror" has obscured President Bush's cuts to education and human services and his tax relief for the rich. It is even more tragic in America because Israel really is fighting a war on terrorists: the Palestinians who have blown up cafes, nightclubs and buses full of Israeli civilians during the last several years. America's war on terror - at least, after the horrors of Sept. 11 - has consisted largely of Bush's war of choice, not necessity, in Iraq and the famous color-coded alert system.
I, the classic blinkered, blue-state philosophy major, thought Kerry could not lose. Imagine this campaign: Since 2000, more of you are poor and unemployed. If you think this is good, vote for Bush. If you think it is bad, vote for me. Instead, Kerry gave Bush home field advantage in the 2004 Presidential World Series by focusing on the war, whose rules and duration Bush decides. Nobody was swayed by "Bush Lite": I'm tough like Bush, but don't you fear, I've got what it takes to sound dizzyingly vague about your safety! And Kerry voters said the economy was most important to them anyway.
In wartime, citizens panic in the voting booth and choose the party they think will keep them safe. That party's economic agenda, then, gets an artificial boost, because by an unfortunate accident of political parties, economics and foreign policy are tied together.
The purpose of a liberal party is to use government power to reward citizens as human beings, entitling the average working family to a fair standard of living, education and health care. To get this job done, liberals must separate out and neutralize security, recasting the debate between parties as a debate between economic platforms. That is what Peretz is doing, what Kerry failed to do in 2004 and what the Democrats must do in 2008.
This does not mean Bush gets off the hook for botched intelligence in Iraq. Nor does it mean that anything other than Israel and Palestine sharing Jerusalem is the most stable plan. It does not relieve a government's responsibility for the safety of its people. Too many in Iraq have died for agendas dreamed up in Washington conference rooms, and Israelis deserve to ride buses and go to cafes without fearing Palestinian terrorists. But if the liberal party's creed becomes, "Listen to how we retouch the incumbent's military strategies," then liberal politics has lost its way.
The Democrats can learn this from the glimmers of the Israeli left, even if the election turns out to be a referendum on unilateralism and Labour gets smashed. Of course, they should have remembered it from Bill Clinton in 1992. Hopefully, Hillary remembers it well enough to watch from the Oval Office as Peretz translates "It's the economy, stupid" into Hebrew. My prayers are with both of them.
Benjamin Rolfe is a senior and philosophy major. He can be reached at brolfe01@trumpeter-store.tufts.edu.
